Bears chairman George McCaskey is peeling back the curtain on the team’s brief flirtation with Tom Brady.
Weeks after the legendary quarterback-turned-NFL analyst revealed that he was “seriously considering” Chicago in 2020 before joining Tampa Bay in free agency, McCaskey detailed the Bears’ interest in the future Hall of Famer.
“Well, that seems like ancient history at this point,” McCaskey recently said, according to ESPN. “I do remember we were interested in pursuing him. It didn’t work out for us. Worked out great for him in Tampa.”
Brady had just wrapped his 20th season in New England, where he won six Super Bowls, before teaming up with the Buccaneers in the 2020 offseason. He led Tampa to a championship in his first season with the team.
Meanwhile, the Bears landed then-Jaguars quarterback Nick Foles in an offseason trade in 2020 to compete for the starting job against Mitch Trubisky, whose fifth-year option the team declined to pick up.
McCaskey then expressed the importance of leaving no stone unturned.
“Anytime you’re in a situation like that you’re not putting all of your eggs in one basket. You’re looking at alternatives. It’s the same in free agency, it’s the same in the draft. If the person you’re targeting isn’t available, you want to make sure that you’ve done your due diligence on all other options. So that was one option that we were looking at,” he said.
Brady, who spent the final three seasons of his NFL career in Tampa Bay before retiring in 2023, set the internet ablaze late last month when he recalled Chicago’s past recruitment.
“Chicago was a team, and I’ve never told that story before, they were very stealth in their recruitment,” Brady said on a Fox broadcast. “I was seriously considering, but in the end, it came down to Tampa. And it was close to my son Jack, I loved Bruce Arians and the role that he played in offense, and ultimately the great players like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin that I’m still out there watching today.”
Much like how things turned out for Tampa Bay — which reached the playoffs last year in the post-Brady era — Chicago is trending upward as this year’s first-overall pick, Caleb Williams, is getting more comfortable in his role as the team’s starting quarterback.
“We wanted to have a structure in place for him to succeed, and a lot of that was protecting him from the inevitable distractions when you’re the starting quarterback of the Chicago Bears. Everybody wants some of your time and unfortunately in order for him to do his job properly, he doesn’t have time for everyone. We have to protect him, we have to act as buffers, and I think we have a good support system in place for him,” McCaskey said.
Williams, 22, has thrown five touchdowns and four interceptions through five games and has completed 62.9 percent of his passes.
The Bears (3-2) travel to London this week to face the Jaguars (1-4), who got their first win of the season last Sunday.
